- This Blog is for anyone who knows little or nothing about financial matters. -

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

SETTING
GOALS

Rule
of Thumb

Without
a road map, you cannot reach your destination.

Every individual and family have different plans for
the future. Think what you want for yourself and your family in the short term.
What about the long term. If you are like most people, some of these wants will
involve money. You will need money to buy a new car, pay for home improvements,
send your child or children to college, and pay for additional education for
yourself.

Many people feel that their life is out of control
and to pay for the above items is a difficult thing to achieve. How would you
like for your life to be different and achieve many of the things that you want
out of life to become a reality?

A very useful tool to achieve needs is called goals.

The process of determining where you want to go in
life and knowing how to achieve it is part of goal setting.

After you begin working on your goals you may find
that they are no longer what you want, and so reset your goals to meet new
needs and desires.

Setting goals
is a powerful process for thinking through your ideal future and finding ways
to your vision into reality. It will help you turn your dreams and desires for
the future into something solid that you know how to achieve.

Setting and keeping goals is a very hard task. Many
of the people that I have worked with over the past 20 years are very good
about setting up the goals, but have a very hard time keeping them. If you
remember, in an earlier part of my Blog, I said that everything in life is work
and you must stay focused on what you are doing and don’t expect instant
gratification.

Setting goals helps you:

·Work toward making your future better;

·Prioritize how you spend your money so
that it goes toward things that really matter to you ; (always remember you
earned the money and it is under your control, do not let anyone take money
away from you unless you completely agree to allow this to happen);

·Measure and track your progress toward
getting the things you want out of life;

·Take pride in bettering your life and
the lives of your children,

You may set any time line that you want to achieve
your goals:

·Short term goals- usually 6-7 months in duration.

·Medium term goals: usually 1.5 to 2
years in duration.

·Long tern goals: may last for the rest
of your life.

WHEN YOU SET UP YOUR GOALS, THE FOLLOWING WILL HELP
YOU IN DESIGNING THEM:

1.Specific—Who? What? Why?

2.Measureable—how much? How will I know if
it is done?

3.Able to Reach—how will I do this? Is
this a goal that I can actually reach?

4.Important to me—is this something that I
really want? Is now the right time to do this?

5.Time — when do you want to reach this
goal? In 3months, 6months ,

a year, 5 years?

Now let’s put this all together. As we progress
through the Blog, I will bring up subjects that will probably help with your
goals. This is one of the hardest issues that you will come across in your
personal finance, GOOD LUCK!!!!!